Can Everton Ever Get the Better Of Its Higher Spending Rivals?

Following Saturday's 2-2 draw away to Wigan Athletic, Everton was in an increasingly familiar position: close to the top of the table—third, in fact—and only clubs with larger total payrolls above it.

What's new? Starting with the 2006-07 season, Everton has finished sixth, fifth, fifth, eighth, seventh and seventh in successive seasons. Throughout that time, only once—last year, when Newcastle finished two spots above with a marginally lower set of player salaries—has someone spent less than the Toffees on talent and finished higher.

Wages only tell part of the story. What about transfer expenditure? Well, this past summer the club broke even in the transfer market. Over the previous three seasons, it made a profit of nearly $40 million in buying and selling players, a signifier of being a smallish fish that needs to sell off quality players to stay competitive in the giant Premier League pond.

By any measure, this is a club that knows how to get bang for buck, even on a relative shoestring.

There are two key ingredients to Everton's success and neither can easily be replaced overnight. One is the club's youth academy, which over the years has produced a steady stream of viable Premier League players. Illustrious alumni include Leon Osman, Richard Dunne, Jack Rodwell and, of course, Wayne Rooney. Osman is still at Everton, while the other three were sold for combined fees of nearly $80 million.

The other factor is the manager, David Moyes. A fixture at Everton's Goodison Park since 2002, he's the third-longest-serving manager in the Premier League after a pair of living legends, Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsenal's Arsene Wenger. As coaches go, he's been described as an "up-and-comer" for so long that, at 49, it begins to carry the slight whiff of a backhanded compliment.

Moyes's tactics appear simple, but in fact are based upon a well-drilled defensive structure. He doesn't pigeonhole players. Defenders such as John Heitinga and Phil Neville have been used in midfield and midfielders like Tim Cahill and Marouane Fellaini have, on occasion, been deployed as forwards. He has made the odd mistake in the transfer market—Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Per Kroldrup and Andy van der Meyde come to mind—but over a decade, you're going to have the a few misses to go with your hits.

Given his success, the fact that Moyes is still at Everton is something of a head-scratcher. The self-described People's Club has a glorious history. It was founded in 1878, was one of the charter members of the English Football League and has won nine domestic titles: only Manchester United (19), Liverpool (18) and Arsenal (13) have won more. The problem is that the last of Everton's English championships came a quarter of a century ago and the future doesn't look bright.

As the game's business model changes, it's hard to see Everton keeping up. It has not made a profit since 2005, according to publicly available club documents. Last year, the shortfall was $8.7 million, bringing total losses since 2006 to nearly $60 million. It's not an enormous amount, but it would have been even bigger if Everton didn't sell its biggest stars year after year.

The club's base in Liverpool doesn't help matters. It's an economically depressed area with plenty of footballing competition, not least from the red half of the city, Liverpool FC, one of England's two best-supported clubs. Throw in the fact that Manchester United, the Premier League's most popular team, and free-spending Manchester City are less than an hour away, and the potential for growth is fairly limited. The fan base, weaned on success nearly three decades ago, is loyal but inevitably aging.

Then there's Goodison Park itself: It first opened in 1892 and, for all its history, is not the kind of money-printing stadium modern clubs crave. In fact, there has been talk of a move and a new stadium (some have even suggested sharing a facility with Liverpool, which is heresy to some fans but would make financial sense) for the past two decades.

But the problem is Everton simply can't afford it. And club chairman Bill Kenwright has been quite blunt about if for a long time.

Given all this, it's logical to ask why Moyes has stuck around. There's a natural progression up the food chain for managers and he seems to have gotten as far as Everton and stopped. Part of it is that there have been fewer vacancies up the ladder. Wenger and Sir Alex have been around throughout his tenure and a move to crosstown rival Liverpool is a non-starter for obvious reasons. That leaves Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and, since the arrival of Sheikh Mansour in 2008, Manchester City as possible destinations where Moyes might have found significantly more resources to work with.

Moyes could look for a job abroad, but he only speaks English. British managers are also often held in low regard in foreign leagues, and their high Premier League salaries don't help a move to the continent, either. With such a small pool of potential employers and opportunities, you can see why he's still at Everton, much to the joy of its fans.

You wonder what the future will bring and assume that at some point in the not-so-distant future,the big jobs will open up for him. Wenger is 62, Sir Alex is 70 and there's bound to be managerial turnover elsewhere. The thing is, memories are short in soccer and there's a risk that by the time that happens Moyes will have run out of miracles. If that happens and he stays at Everton, he can take solace from the fact that he's led the club to overachieve valiantly during one of the toughest periods of its history. And that he has postponed what may well be an inevitable decline.

—Gabriele Marcotti is the world soccer columnist for the Times of London and a regular broadcaster for the BBC.

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